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Melodrama begins with House speaker

To give credit where credit is due, House Speaker John Boehner is the best spinmeister in Washington. He could argue that a skunk is a midget zebra with the stripe running the wrong way. And probably believe it himself.

No one does political melodrama as well as the speaker. Witness his performance on ABC’s “This Week.” At one point he snapped, like an actor on cue, “This isn’t some damn game!” (We have to wonder why he’s treating it like one.) With bravado and oblivious to the facts, Boehner blamed Obama for pushing the nation to default and for allegedly refusing to negotiate. Boehner blithely ignored that, constitutionally, he too shares responsibility for keeping the nation from falling off a financial cliff.

I have to admire Boehner’s political deftness under pressure. He didn’t want to shut down the government. That was forced on him by 40 or so tea party House members who rebelled against his strategy to use the debt limit instead. A strange excuse from the speaker of the House.

The House tea party had a little prompting from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senators took Sen. Cruz to the woodshed over a heated luncheon, where Cruz revealed he had no exit strategy for the Republican Party, leaving Boehner holding the bag with the stinking mess — a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows 70 percent of Americans disapprove of how congressional Republicans have handled things.

The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the exclusive power of the purse. First, the House authorizes the government to spend the money, then it appropriates (budgets) the money to be spent. It all starts in the House. Negotiations with the Senate come after the House passes a budget.

If Congress spends more money than the government takes in, then Congress must raise the debt limit so the government can borrow to pay its bills. But again, this must begin in the House. The House moves first.

If the House doesn’t pass a budget, or raise the debt, then the government not only grinds to a halt, but creditors come knocking on our door. That means China. And, China has publicly warned us that “the clock is ticking.”

Defaulting on our debt, something America has never done, would be catastrophic. Economists say default would not only trigger another Great Recession, it could cause a global financial meltdown. This is, indeed, “not a damn game.” It’s blackmail.

The House passed the last budget in March. It had until Sept. 30 to negotiate. It did not. Nineteen times the Senate asked for a conference committee to iron out differences, and 19 times the Republicans refused.

Between March and Sept. 30, the House spent one-third of its legislative days in recess. They could have talked then. Why didn’t they? Because John Boehner (and Mitch McConnell) want to blackmail — there’s no other word — the country over Obamacare — a law that’s functional, beneficial and constitutional.

Boehner refused to do his duty unless President Obama agreed to “negotiate” (i.e., dismantle) Obamacare. And his ransom demands (again, no other words) increase: Boehner now says the president must also agree to his cuts (for example, no food stamps for the poor and struggling middle class, but big subsidies to wealthy mega farmers), or else. And somehow, it will be Obama’s fault.

Boehner now says even if he has the votes, he will neither pass the budget nor raise the debt limit until Obama agrees to his party’s demands. (He calls it “a conversation.”)

Two hundred Democrats have said they’ll vote to fund the government without strings attached. That means only 17 Republicans are needed to end this madness. Independent news services have counted. The votes are there. It’s the democratic way to let the majority decide. But Boehner won’t permit the vote.

Boehner told his House conference that he won’t permit a default. That means Boehner knows and admits that he has the power to prevent a default. It starts with the House, and in the House it starts with the speaker.

The government has ground to a halt, and the world is on the brink of financial instability because Boehner and the Republicans refuse to perform their constitutional duty — a duty they swore to uphold — in order to extort what they couldn’t win in a fair election.

We deserve better than a 19th-century melodrama, complete with robber barons.

President Obama must work with responsible leaders in Congress to stop the endless budget brinkmanship. It’s past time that Washington, D.C. (and its leaders), focus on getting the American people back to work and to identify strategies to help rebuild our nation’s infrastructure. Can we do this and also focus on strategies to further reduce our deficit? Of course we can.

This isn’t about Obamacare. It’s about our shared national interest, which should be a higher priority than petty partisan politics.

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Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR, and a contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

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